Are churches and Christians getting too wishy-washy?
Doctrine can be seen as a dull, boring, outdated word, but it is really a body of teachings.
Christian doctrine is essential to have a structured belief, otherwise we will be weak, halfhearted and uncertain in our faith.
We need biblical Christian doctrine more than ever in this era of Postmodernism, which holds to broad scepticism [doubt toward any faith knowledge], subjectivism [where our mental activity is the only unquestionable fact of our experience], or relativism [where there’s no absolute truth] and a general suspicion of reason, etc. 1
Table of Contents:
1. Doctrine is not just a Christian thing.
Facebook and many other companies have their doctrine.
Doctrine contrary to popular opinion, is not legalism.
Doctrine is just the working essentials for getting things done.
Doctrine determines identity, authority and ability.
In other words who you are, what you can do and how you can get a good job done.
2. Is it dry and irrelevant? Just what is Christian doctrine?
A Christian’s thought and speech should issue from a knowledge of God:
I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that was given you in Christ Jesus, that in every way you were enriched in him in all speech and all knowledge— even as the testimony about Christ was confirmed among you…”
1 Corinthians 1:4-5 ESV
Take note, “that in EVERY WAY you were ENRICHED in him in all speech and all KNOWLEDGE.”
God wants us to be enriched by knowledge because we will learn more and more about who God is and His plans.
He does not want us to remain in the dark and fumbling around.
God wants our minds to be enlightened by His Truth.
Jesus said to his disciples:
When the Spirit of truth comes he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.
John 16:13-15 ESV
He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you.
All that the Father has is mine; therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.”
The knowledge of the Truth is good.
The Holy Spirit’s main task is to steer us into God’s Truth.
Reading the Bible is the most important way of learning God’s Truth.
Below is a quote from Psalm 119 all about God’s law, commands and precepts, which we can now call the whole Bible.
Open my eyes that I may see wonderful things in your law…
Psalm 119:18, 43, 66 & 89-93 NIV
Never take your word of truth from my mouth, for I have put my hope in your laws…
Teach me knowledge and good judgment, for I trust your commands…
Your word, Lord, is eternal; it stands firm in the heavens.
Your faithfulness continues through all generations; you established the earth, and it endures.
Your laws endure to this day, for all things serve you.
If your law had not been my delight, I would have perished in my affliction.
I will never forget your precepts, for by them you have preserved my life.”
Remember what Jesus told us, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” 2
Included is our MIND, because Christianity is a rational faith, Christianity is reasonable:
…faith doesn’t actually allow for blind leaps, but instead, our beliefs change as we are persuaded and convinced by the evidence presented to us.
‘Christianity IS Reasonable … So Don’t Be Afraid of the Questions’ By Jeremy Myers. 3
And thankfully, there is strong evidence for the truth claims of Christianity.
Thankfully, Christianity is a reasonable faith.
Yes, many aspects of Christendom are not so reasonable, and can be safely discarded, but the core beliefs of Christianity as founded by Jesus and centered upon Him can stand up to any and all challenges.
This is why I always invite people to investigate any and all questions or challenges that come their way.
I say that if what we believe is true, then the questions and challenges will only solidify that truth. But if what we believe is not true, then the questions and challenges will expose our beliefs as lies.
Either way, questions and challenges are a ‘win’… ”
The apostles filled Jerusalem with their doctrine and shook the then-known world.
Having a belief system is world-changing.
Being uncertain, doubtful and vague is paralysing!
Doctrine is NOT dry and irrelevant!
Anyone who is against doctrine either does not understand what doctrine is, or does not want to build up believers in the faith.
3. Christianity is a reasonable faith.
When we believe in Jesus, we do not have to turn our brains off.
If we can believe in the miracles that are in the Bible, then Christianity is reasonable.
True miracles tend not to have any flagrant hype or have any gaudy showbiz antics in them.
Miracles are supernatural events that, just for that moment, bypass the natural laws of nature and bring about a healing or a corrective action.
Kenneth Samples explains why Christianity is reasonable:
First, the Christian worldview offers a plausible explanation for affirming an objective source for knowledge, reason, and rationality. That basis is found in a personal and rational God. Infinitely wise and all-knowing, God created the universe to reflect a coherent order…
‘Five Ways Christianity Is Reasonable’ by Kenneth Samples. Reasons to Believe. 4
Second, Christian truth claims do not violate the basic laws or principles of reason. Christian faith, though it often transcends finite human comprehension, is not irrational or absurd. In other words, faith does not damage reason…
Third, the Bible encourages the attainment of knowledge, wisdom, and understanding. Scripture also promotes such intellectual virtues as source-checking, discernment, testing, reflection, and intellectual renewal…
Fourth, the truths of the Christian faith correspond to and are supported by such things as evidence, facts, and reason. Biblical faith (Greek: pisteuō, the verb ‘believe’; pistis, the noun ‘faith’) can be defined as confident trust in a reasonable and reliable source (God or Christ)…
Fifth, historic Christianity has made great contributions in the rational fields of logic and science…”
Christian doctrine is an exciting exploration of the Scriptures and so discovering who God is what He has done and what He plans to do.
4. What is Christian doctrine? Is it taught in universities and Bible colleges?
J. I. Packer wrote:
In the war years Oxbridge theology was not at its best, and as sad experience shows bad theology infects the heart with disbelief and unbelief, the spiritual equivalents of multiple sclerosis.
J. I. Packer’s Foreward in ‘Know the Truth’ by Bruce Milne. IVP. 5
Many who ran well have been progressively paralysed through ingesting bad theology, and the danger remains.
Also, theological expertise can feed intellectual pride, turning one into a person who cares more for knowing true notions than for knowing the true God, and that is disasterous too.
But this only shows how a good thing can be spoiled.”
For a long time now, the Bible Colleges appear to be teaching a vagueness of belief.
The Independent on Saturday 22nd October 2011 wrote about ‘The one true Bishop of Durham: Dr David Jenkins’:
His manner is that of a theology don addressing his first-year students.
‘The one true Bishop of Durham: Dr David Jenkins’ The Independent 6
If their ideas are not up to scratch, he will tell them, unforgettably.
… it exposes the real Anglican difficulties about truth and authority that Dr Jenkins’s career has highlighted…”
“If their ideas are not up to scratch” sounds good until you realise what he wanted to see.
The Bishop of Durham wanted the students to pick over the Scriptures as if they were very fussy vultures trying to find the best meat, but ignoring most of the carcass.
The students were in effect, encouraged to reject the authority of the Scripture and this is what The Independent was highlighting by saying, the “difficulties about truth and authority”.
But this isn’t just an Anglican problem of having belief difficulties with truth and authority.
There is a wobbliness and uncertainty in truth, and science has taken centre stage.
Science is not wrong, if truthfully pursued it should reveal the wonder of God’s creation.
The bishop was saying to the students that ‘their ideas’ ideally meant questioning biblical truth and coming to their own thoughts on the resurrection, miracles, God’s plan, etc.
This is putting humanity on a pedestal and lowers the Creator God to something we can pick over and find fault.
The academic approach to Scripture treats the divine element – for all practical purposes – as non-existent.
‘Evangelicalism Divided. A Record of Change in the Years 1950 to 2000’ By Iain H. Murray. 9
History shows that when evangelicals allow that approach their teaching will sooner or later begin to look little different from that of liberals.
On this point Dr Oliver Barclay, from long familiarity with the university scene in Britain, has made the following perceptive comment:
“University theology in the twentieth century has been both highly reductionist and also very rationalistic… Academic scholars delight to find differences between the various authors [of the Bible], and, if possible, between an author’s earlier and later writings. (How else can one find something original to say for a thesis?) The Bible is then treated as bits and pieces of a mosaic that do not fit together… Christianity has always been a matter of divine revelation rather than what can be argued for by human reason…” 8 “
It is good to question things and not to blindly accept what you are told, which is why the Berean Jews checked out what they were being told:
Now the Berean Jews were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.“
Acts 17:11 NIV
But this checking out is done with a reverence for God.
5. Christians need to have solid doctrine!
Yes, ask questions, and seek things out, but we cannot stay in a permanent flux of doubt and compromise.
We need to at some point to surrender to the truth (the doctrine) and to the One who made all things.
However, the teaching of David Jenkins casts doubt and raises the authority of the human mind.
The Independent article continued:
The popular belief that Jesus was born to a virgin in a manger and then adored by shepherds and wise men may also be quite wrong.
‘The one true Bishop of Durham: Dr David Jenkins’ The Independent
But it does tell believers that God so loved the world that he gave his only son for it.
By knocking down the common-sense view, because he thinks it an inadequate expression of the truth, Dr Jenkins appears to be denying the truth that it conceals.”
What is being said here, is that the biblical account of things can, or is, wrong but it points to spiritual truth.
This then becomes very wishy-washy and it opens out to a very broad field of thought and people can then choose what the underlying truth might be.
We then become the authority and we don’t have to submit to a higher authority.
The ‘common sense’ of just believing the truth of the Bible is looked down upon and is not taken seriously.
The Independent continues:
Both the scientist and the theologian have good reasons for attacking common sense.
‘The one true Bishop of Durham: Dr David Jenkins’ The Independent
But in the case of a bishop, such attacks are not merely rash, but pointless.
Dr Jenkins is hardly alone among Anglican bishops in seeing common sense as a hydra-headed monster that must be slain 10,000 times a day.
Dr Jenkins’s arguments about miracles do not start with the assumption that they are impossible.
God can, by definition.
A miracle is something God does in order to reveal Himself.
It is not enough that it should be inexplicable; it should also express the inexpressible love and purposes of God.
But if it is to do this, divine action must be consonant with the definitive expression of God’s nature: it must be Christlike.”
The above may sound reasonable, or just plain confused, but again it raises mankind to a position where we can judge what God should be like.
If God has behaved in a different way to what WE think, then that ‘truth’ must be wrong!
Obviously, this stance is wrong and we need to approach the Word of God with awe and a willingness for the Lord to reveal Himself through the truth of what is written.
Is the Gospel message just believe A, B and C? Or is it so much more?
6. How prevalent are wishy-washy beliefs?
Dr. Heidi Campbell, a professor in religious studies at Texas A&M University, points out what happens when Christians become ineffective:
With a shift in religious authority, there is, as we’ve seen in the US, the rise of Christian nationalism…
Dr. Heidi Campbell quotes from: ‘Losing My Religion: How the UK is leaving the Church and gaining conspiracy theories’ By Jonny Walfisz. Euro News. 10
Different religious churches and religious institutions see that they’re losing the culture wars and they see that they’re losing their traditional authority in society. So by integrating they’re grabbing on to political authority to regain their voice in society…
I wouldn’t be surprised if in the next five to 10 years, in the UK, you see a lot more movements towards Christian nationalism…”
Christian nationalism is not the way to go.
Churches need to be teaching good doctrine to raise the level of faith so that believers are filled with the love of Jesus.
The Independent concludes their article on Dr David Jenkins:
This argument can then be used to sift the Bible and decide which improbable stories are truth and which are credulity or wish-fulfilment…
‘The one true Bishop of Durham: Dr David Jenkins’ The Independent
This method is not unique to Dr Jenkins.
It is absolutely bang in the mainstream of modern Christianity.”
Yes, unfortunately, we are being told to sift the Bible and choose what we like and make our own form of ‘Christianity’, but is it the real thing?
The Independent newspaper is stating that this sifting of the Bible has become dominant in the majority of the main churches.
Is it too liberal, too loose?
Perhaps the Christian churches are being blown around by every wind of doctrine and are unable to stand upon the Rock of Truth.
Have we entered the time that the apostle Paul describes as:
For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine.
2 Timothy 4:3 NIV
Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear…”
Wikipedia writing about Liberal Christianity says:
Liberal Protestantism developed in the 19th century out of a need to adapt Christianity to a modern intellectual context.
‘Liberal Christianity’ Wikipedia 11
With the acceptance of Charles Darwin’s theory of natural selection, some traditional Christian beliefs, such as parts of the Genesis creation narrative, became difficult to defend.
Unable to ground faith exclusively in an appeal to scripture or the person of Jesus Christ, liberals, according to theologian and intellectual historian Alister McGrath, ‘sought to anchor that faith in common human experience, and interpret it in ways that made sense within the modern worldview.’ “
Does Christianity need to adapt to the modern intellect by excusing miracles, the virgin birth, the creation of the world, etc?
Does modern science prove that Genesis is wrong?
[See Does Genesis fail scientific study? Day 1 and many other articles on this subject.]
We need to get back to believing and trusting the Bible – to have a proper grasp of Christian doctrine.
When Twitter was formed, it had its doctrine and it shook the cyber world.
Facebook took their doctrine and evangelised the web.
This forces me to pose the question, isn’t it time the church got back to doctrine?
Sound doctrine, the apostle’s doctrine, then maybe we too can evangelise the human world as much as Facebook has the cyber-world.
What is your doctrine?
Is it founded deep in the Bible, or does it get blown around by any new ‘wind of doctrine’?
[An article inspired by Paul B Thomas’ blog, which is no longer on the internet.]
See more detailed articles covering:
A return to early church worship and message, part 1
What does it mean to worship – part 2
Christians need to be united around Jesus’ teachings.
See non-Christian evidence for a historical Jesus.
References and credits – open in new tabs:
‘Postmodernism’ by Brian Duignan. Encyclopaedia Britannica. Last Updated: 6 Nov 2023. ↩
Matthew 22:37 ESV ↩
‘Christianity IS Reasonable … So Don’t Be Afraid of the Questions’ By Jeremy Myers. Redeeming God. ↩
‘Five Ways Christianity Is Reasonable’ by Kenneth Samples. Reasons to Believe. 29 August 2017. ↩
J. I. Packer’s Foreward in ‘Know the Truth’ by Bruce Milne. IVP. ISBN 0-85110-707-9 ↩
‘The one true Bishop of Durham: Dr David Jenkins’ The Independant Saturday 22nd October 2011 ↩
Durham diocese ‘Sad death of bishop David Jenkins’ Page now removed. Photo now found at The Guardian. Keith Blundy/PA ↩
‘Evangelicalism Divided. A Record of Change in the Years 1950 to 2000’ By Iain H. Murray. The Banner of Truth Trust. ISBN 0-85151-783-8 p. 185 ↩
Dr. Heidi Campbell quotes from: ‘Losing My Religion: How the UK is leaving the Church and gaining conspiracy theories’ By Jonny Walfisz. Euro News. 4 December 2022. ↩